April 2025: Leading Blockchains Ranked by Developer Engagement

As of April 2025, the blockchain ecosystem continues to evolve, with developer activity serving as a key indicator of network health and innovation. This monthly ranking highlights the top 10 blockchain platforms based on commits, smart contract deployments, and ecosystem tooling updates. Metrics include GitHub repositories, node client updates, and protocol improvement proposals (PIPs) to objectively measure technical momentum across Layer 1 and Layer 2 solutions. The analysis excludes pure transaction volume metrics to focus specifically on builder activity, revealing which networks are attracting the most engineering talent and maintaining sustainable development cycles amidst shifting market conditions.

Developer activity is considered to be a key metric in gauging the long-term potential and health of blockchains. As per the data from the crypto data intelligence platform Santiment, iExec RLC ($REC), Internet Computer ($ICP), and ChainLink ($LINK) are the top blockchains in terms of developer activity over 30 days. The other names in the top-10 list take into account Starknet ($STRK), Optimism ($OP), Cardano ($ADA), Sui ($SUI), DeepBook Protocol ($DEEP), Ethereum ($ETH), and zkSync ($ZK).

iExec RLC ($RLC) Dominates Top 10 Chains by Developer Activity

The top player among the blockchains in the case of developer activity is iExec RLC ($RLC). In this respect, the project has witnessed the staggering 1.01K developer activity projects during the past month. Subsequently, the 2nd name on the list is Internet Computer ($ICP). It has reportedly seen up to 850.27 developer activity projects over the same period.

Following that, Chainlink ($LINK) is the 3rd top blockchain when it comes to developer activity. Hence, over the recent thirty days, it has recorded nearly 700.67 developer activity projects. In addition to this, the 4th top blockchain on the respective list is Starknet ($STRK). Particularly, its developer activity-related projects have reached 426.6 in number over the past thirty days. The next name on the list is Optimism ($OP). The blockchain has effectively recorded almost 372 developer activity projects during the 1 month.

zkSync ($ZK) Bottoms List with 285.43 Developer Activity Events

Santiment’s list of prominent blockchains by developer activity places Cardano ($ADA) in the 6th position, with its dev activity projects touching 365.13 in number. After that, Sui ($SUI) stands in the 7th place with 321.8 dev activity projects recorded over the month. Next is DeepBook Protocol ($DEEP) with 321.8 developer activity projects. Additionally, Ethereum ($ETH) has secured the 9th position with 309.97 projects. Moreover, zkSync ($ZK) is the last among the top 10 blockchains with 285.43 developer activity events.